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SCA continues to operate in Afghanistan during COVID-19 pandemic

In accordance to an official instruction by the Ministry of Economy, the lockdown in the cities does not fully apply to NGOs working in Afghanistan, hence, the SCA has maintained its offices either partially or completely open to deliver health and most needed services to all Afghans in our operational target areas.

The SCA’s COVID-19 response team has been actively monitoring the situation and has taken necessary measures to fight the pandemic.

Starting from within SCA, the safety of staff while working during lockdowns has been a priority and therefore, personal protective equipment, hand sanitizers, masks, and gloves are distributed to employees.

The other measures include the establishment of dedicated isolation wards, procurement of required equipment and medicine, and hiring of additional health staff at the Wardak region. The SCA has also increased its public awareness activities through Community Development Councils, print publications, and radio messages at its all regional management offices.

Additionally, in Behsood district, SCA’s mobile health teams are doing health checkups at the entry point to Behsood on the highway to Wardak-Bamiyan and people showing signs and symptoms of COVID-19 are immediately referred to the provincial hospital for further medical procedures.

Most importantly, the SCA has also established a community surveillance system to identify and quarantine returnees from Iran at their homes in the Wardak region. Consequently, those of them with signs and symptoms of COVID-19 are referred to the formal isolation units at provincial and district hospitals for testing and treating purposes.

The SCA through the citizen charter programme at its three regional management offices is actively providing awareness among community members and has so far provided primary food packages for nearly 1700 needy families.

It is worth to mention that the SCA has so far spent nearly 11 million Afghanis for this cause from its existing financial resources.

The Swedish Committee for Afghanistan is a non-profit and non-governmental organization that contributes to the health, education, rural development, and disability rehabilitation sectors in Afghanistan.